Quotes about Shakespeare Flashcards
“He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life. Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare’s wit.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We can say of Shakespeare, that never has a man turned so little knowledge to such great account.”
TS Eliot
When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder that such trivial people should muse and thunder in such lovely language.”
DH Lawrence
“Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.”
ST Coleridge
“Sweet Swan of Avon!”
Ben Jonson
“My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room.”
Ben Jonson
A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller: he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way and sure to engulf him in the mire.”
Ben Jonson
“He was not of an age, but for all time!”
Ben Jonson
“Thou hadst small Latin and less Greek.”
Ben Jonson
“If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare’s intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it that he himself is aware of.”
Thomas Carlyle
“If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators.”
William Hazlitt
“Hamlet’s experience simply could not have happened to a plumber.”
GB Shaw
“There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.
But Shakespeare’s magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he.
He was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature. He looked inwards, and found her there.”
John Dryden
“Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honour’d bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallow’d relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
And so sepulchered in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.”
John Milton
“And one wild Shakespeare, following Nature’s lights,
Is worth whole planets, filled with Stagyrites.”
Thomas More
“One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed,
Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.”
Horace Walpole
“Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
William Wordsworth
Shakespeare – The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.”
Lawrence Olivier
“Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.”
Orsen Welles
“Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”
Cole Porter
“The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good – in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”
Robert Graves
“Shakespeare said pretty well everything and what he left out, James Joyce, with a judge from meself, put in.”
Brendan Behan
“Wonderful women! Have you ever thought how much we all, and women especially, owe to Shakespeare for his vindication of women in these fearless, high-spirited, resolute and intelligent heroines?”
Dame Ellen Terry
